


The Ghost of You

by thestarkswillendure



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, D&S Secret Santa Exchange, F/M, Hospital Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:40:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21944506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thestarkswillendure/pseuds/thestarkswillendure
Summary: In a world without Overwatch, Genji Shimada dies after the attempt on his life. As a result of his violent death, his spirit never moves on, left haunting the hospital wherein he died.Years later, Angela Ziegler is transferred to that very hospital.
Relationships: Genji Shimada & Hanzo Shimada, Genji Shimada/Angela "Mercy" Ziegler
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	The Ghost of You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akio_momiji](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akio_momiji/gifts).



> This was written for the 2019 Doves and Sparrows Secret Santa Exchange! I had the honor of getting Momiji_Lian, who once expressed interest for a fic with Yokai Genji.

Rain fell, thick and unrelenting amidst the evening fog. 

When Angela had transferred to Hanamura, she hadn’t expected it to constantly be raining. She’d always imagined Hanamura to be a sunny city, full of resplendent cherry blossoms and beautiful architecture. It was still beautiful, she thought, watching as long-fallen blossoms disappeared under the soles of her boots. 

It was a kind of dark beauty however, streetlights making the rain-slicked cobbled streets shine in the darkness. It hadn’t stopped raining once in the month since she’d moved here. Ahead, the hospital’s building loomed, light filtering out onto the streets from its many windows. 

Quickening her pace, Angela gritted her teeth as a strong gust of wind blew past, leaving mist on her glasses and a thin layer of dampness on her clothes. When she finally steps into the lobby, she smiles at the girl at the front desk and makes her way to her office, umbrella dripping at her side. 

Her office is small and largely impersonal, the surface of her desk only containing her computer, her files and the mug she’d brought from home. The only indication of her life outside this office was the photo tacked up on the board beside her desk, taken years ago at the annual Lindholm Christmas party. When she glances it, she feels warm again despite the chill. 

The Lindholms were the closest thing she had to a family, Ingrid having been a lifelong friend of her mother’s. When her parents had died, they’d taken her in, cared for her. She’d grown up alongside the eldest Lindholm children, had come to view the younger ones, especially Brigitte, as younger brothers and sisters. She caught sight of Reinhardt in the background of the photograph, laughing and smiled. He too was family, though she no longer saw him as often since he’d chosen to travel. 

She hoped wherever he was, he was safe. Reinhardt had a tendency to throw himself headfirst into things. 

Turning her attention to her computer, booting up from its long weekend slumber, she paused. There it was again, that distinct feeling of being watched… A chill shivered down her spine. She’d been feeling it since the day she’d started, when she’d gotten lost and found herself in the part of the hospital that housed the mortuary. 

Glancing around her small space and finding nothing, she tried to shrug it off. Sighing, she snatched up her mug and left her office in search of coffee. 

The lounge was a beautiful and wide open area, overlooking a small indoor courtyard. It seemed everything here was much more open, more receptive to nature. A small part of the room had been sectioned off with mats for tea drinking, the rest of the space filled with couches and armchairs. Traditional artwork covered the walls, a far cry from some of the other hospital lounges she’d seen over the years. Here, there were no tacky old posters about getting regular check-ups, no holograms promoting nanobiotic healing. Only reverence for what was and what remained. 

As she waits for her coffee to brew, her humming loud and off-key in the silence of the room, she looks around, taking in the art. The swirling whorls of wind, inked against mountains that seemed to scrape the clouds and dance amongst dragons. Detailed portraits of archers and swordsmen, emperors and empresses. When she turns to look at the courtyard, to gauge whether the torrential downpour has lessened, she gasps. 

There, beyond the fountain, standing amongst the flowers and bushes was a spectre in white. From where she stood, Angela could see the faint outline of a young man, dark hair a stark contrast against the pale of his skin, scars criss crossing his face. As she watches, his upper body flickers, another image taking place, the figure now all in black, a demonic mask covering his face. Red eyes stare back at her from a white mask, horns sticking out on either side of the temple and at the very edges of the mandible. The outline flickers again and the young man returns, dark eyes finding Angela's and pinning her in place.

Fear grips her heart and though she tries to keep calm, she can't manage to swallow past the ball that's lodged itself in her throat. 

Behind her, footsteps echo down the hall and the figure vanishes. Almost like a puppet whose strings have been cut, the tension leaves Angela's body all at once. 

Her supervisor, Yuna, enters the lounge, surprised to find Angela simply standing there. 

"Dr. Ziegler, I thought you'd be making your rounds already. We need you in the 2nd ward," she says, pausing to look up from her data pad when Angela doesn’t immediately move to leave. 

Glancing back at the courtyard, Angela tries to explain, to verbalize whatever it is she saw. Or thought she saw? She didn’t always get the best sleep these days. 

The words die on her lips though, as she thinks of her patients. What did it matter what she’d seen. The world had seen many strange things in the past couple of decades. With a nod, she grabs her coffee and steps past Yuna, on her way back to her office to grab her data pad. 

The computer has booted up in her absence and she glances at the notifications for a second, sighing when she sees the number. Fishing her data pad from her desk drawer, she sets out to the 2nd ward, checking her messages and emails as she goes.

The 2nd ward was a slow one, dedicated to the hospital’s long term patients, its elderly as well as its coma patients. They’d started her off slow for her first two months even though Angela had far more than enough experience to handle the flow of the emergency room or even the constant pressures of the intensive care unit. 

As she walks, she narrowly avoids walking into the various personnel and patients she passes, nurses and doctors dashing in and out of rooms, carrying data pads and a variety of tools and meds. Patients in their long white gowns, out making their rounds through the hallways slowly, trying to delay the progression of their atrophying muscles. 

Angela found it comforting to know that no matter what region of the world she found herself in, there would always be this constant in every clinic and hospital: the bustling nature of it all. As she nears the 2nd ward, the halls grow quieter. She catches sight of family members sitting with their loved ones in the rooms she passes, their soft voices reaching her ears even though their murmured words do not. 

She starts at the end of the hall, checking the vitals of a teenage boy first. An orphan from what she could tell given that he had no next of kin listed on his charts, admitted in two weeks ago after he’d jumped off a nearby bridge. Her heart aches as she looks down at his youthful face, his face pale under the bandages that wrap around his head, tufts of dark hair peeking out from underneath. 

As she notes down his vitals, consistent with the previous vitals listed on his chart, the lights overhead flicker. With a frown, she glances at them, then checks to make sure that the heart monitor isn’t experiencing any glitches. Nothing seems amiss so she finishes her notes and then leaves the room to check on her next patient, this time an elderly grandmother, who has visitors. 

Mrs. Watanabe is a sweet little old lady, who always asks Angela if she’s getting enough sleep whenever she comes in to check on her. Her daughter, Himari, who comes by frequently to visit, smiles at Angela when she enters, her own daughter, Niko, sitting on her lap. 

Angela smiles softly at the women, apologizing for the interruption. 

Niko’s eyes track Angela as she checks Mrs. Watanabe’s vitals, brown eyes wide under her glossy bangs. When Angela turns to humor her, ask if she wants her blood pressure to be checked too, Niko turns away, hiding her face in her mother’s shoulder. Himari clucks her tongue, shaking her hair as she runs a soft hand through her daughter’s hair. 

“It’s her birthday today,” Mrs. Watanabe comments, her voice shaking as she shifts on the bed but still full of pride. 

“Is it? _Otanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu_ , Niko!” Angela winces as she hears the words leave her mouth, she sounded so terribly awkward but she’d never learn if she didn’t practice. Still, the words are enough to make Niko lift her head and utter a soft ‘ _thank you’._

“How old are you turning?” Angela asks, as she turns back to finish her notes. “ _Roku”._

“Six! That’s super,” Angela exclaims, turning back briefly to give Niko a wink. “I think I have some candy in my office if you’d like,” she offers, glancing at Himari, who looks grateful and nods at her daughter when Niko turns to her. 

“Excellent. I’ll be right back and I’ll pick up your meds along the way,” she says, addressing Mrs. Watanabe for the last bit. 

It doesn’t take her long to make her way to her office, pick up the candy and then pick up the meds on the way back. It’s only when she’s reached the quiet stretch of hallway past the double doors leading into the 2nd ward that she feels it again. That sensation of being watched. She glances behind her, seeing no one through the windows of the double doors.

When she turns back to the hallway, however, she finds herself standing across from the spectre again, the one she’d seen in the courtyard outside the lounge. He’s closer now, his presence stronger and she can see now the flickering green lights that surround him, soft and humming with energy. 

She watches for the flickering from before too but this time, he remains a young man. Or what’s left of a young man, she thinks, glancing down at where his legs should be, where the figure fades. 

Curiosity shines in his eyes and it's this simple observation that makes her think he means no harm. Against her better judgment, her mind rushes to form coherent thoughts, to come to a practical conclusion. She finds it incredibly hard to come to one. 

As she watches, heart beating an erratic pattern against her sternum, the spectre opens its mouth, trying to speak. He emits no words, only a croaking rasp as if suffering from a punctured lung. 

She blinks and suddenly, he’s standing closer, pale translucent hand coming up to ghost over the name tag on her lab coat. Angela blinks down at it, wondering faintly if she was dreaming. 

This time when he tries to speak, the words come out, haltingly, voice rough with disuse but still the words are easily discernible. “D- Dr. Z- Zieg… ler. Ziegler… Dr. Ziegler.”

When he looks up at her, as if to confirm he’d gotten it right, she nods, her eyes fixed upon the scars on his face. The healer in her wants to reach out and examine them, ask whether they pained him but the rational part of her, at least the small part that’s accepted that this is happening, that she stands before a ghost, the spirit of a man who’d died however long ago he’d died, reminds her that he may not even feel pain. 

The rest of her screams that this isn’t possible. Ghosts didn’t exist. Did they?

“What’s your name?” Angela asks suddenly. 

The spectre glances at her, brows knitting in confusion. He flickers then, the mask from before her appearing. She can now see more clearly that it's an oni mask, she’d seen many since she’d moved here.

Just as quickly as he appeared, he disappears, leaving only flickering lights and a thrumming energy that sticks to Angela all throughout the day. 

Taking a deep breath, she gathers her wits about her and enters Mrs. Watanabe’s room, hoping her face appears more composed than she feels. She’s clearly failed when Mrs. Watanabe asks upon her return, “what’s wrong, Dr. Ziegler? You look like you’ve seen a _yokai”_. 

"A yokai?" she asks faintly, giving Niko a weak smile when she hands her the candy she'd retrieved from her office.

"The yokai are what you would call ghosts," Himari adds, a shade of alarm in her voice, looking at the air around Angela suspiciously as if to catch sight of the spectre. "There are many types of yokai but it is said that most people who encounter the yokai, meet a horrible death". 

Angela doesn't know how to respond to that and so she doesn't, instead focusing on Mrs. Watanabe, making sure she's taken her meds. 

_Yokai…_ Is that what he was?

* * *

Angela doesn’t see him again in the following days. She doesn’t know how to feel about it either. If Himari was telling the truth, then it was probably for the better that the spectre had left. But Angela had researched the yokai, had spent hours pouring over books and files on her datapad, she knew there were different types, not all of them dangerous to humans. 

Like the oni, once feared for their role as gatekeepers, the wardens of Hell, now revered as guardian spirits, warding away bad luck. 

When he flickered, he became one of the oni. She wondered why that was. 

When she next sees him, she’s tending to an elderly man Mr. Akiyama, who seems already to have one foot on Death’s doorstep. As he sleeps, his rattling, wheezing breaths fill the room. Beside her, the heart monitor flickers and she sighs. 

When she turns to the door, he’s standing there, watching her. Today, he doesn’t flicker, he appears unmasked, green lights flickering about his figure. 

“Dr. Ziegler,” he says, not so much in the way of greeting but to show her that he remembered. He looks pleased with himself, an expression that softens his face and makes Angela want to smile. 

“Are you ever going to tell me your name?” she asks, arching an eyebrow in his direction. “I think it’s hardly fair you know mine but I don’t know yours.”

He doesn’t respond to her at first, watching her quietly as she moves around the room. Angela’s heartbeat quickens in anticipation. If she knew his name, she could look into his records. Find out why he was still here, his unfinished business. That’s how these things went, right? Spirits lingered when they had unfinished business and only once they’d resolved things, could they move on. Who knew how long he’d been lingering in this hospital?

He stands very suddenly and only when Angela has turned to give him her full attention does he bow, hands coming together atop his chest. 

“Genji,” he murmurs softly. Angela repeats it, finding that she likes the weight of his name on her tongue. 

“Angela,” she offers in return, once he’s straightened. 

Dark eyes flicker with some unknown emotion and then he’s stepping away from the door and towards the bed. 

“He doesn’t have very long,” he says, nodding his head towards the bed. 

“You can sense that?” 

He nods, looking forlorn. As she examines his face, Angela wonders what he was like back when he was still alive. 

“Genji…” she hesitates. “What happened to you?” 

When he flickers, she’s expecting it. She sees the pattern now, the warring nature of these two sides he exhibits. He doesn’t answer her this time, just fades away. 

Genji keeps his distance in the following days, never quite materializing before her even though she can tell he’s watching, the telltale prickle at the back of her neck giving him away. 

She doesn’t call him out on it, instead continuing about her duties as she normally would. She doesn’t even look up his records, too distracted by everything else going on. 

On Thursday, Mr. Akiyama passes, taking his last breath just as she’s finishing up checking his vitals. It isn’t the first time she’s had a patient die right in front of her but it is the first time since she’s met Genji. She alerts her supervisor and then keeps it together until she reaches her office. 

Once she’s safely ensconced in her little space, far from prying eyes, she lets the tears flow. She lets her feel everything, how lonely she feels, how fiercely she misses everyone back home, how depressing it is to work in the 2nd ward. When she feels Genji’s presence in the room, she cries harder. 

There’s a warmth enveloping her that wasn’t there before and somehow, she knows it’s his way of trying to comfort her. _How pathetic is that_ , _sympathy from the dead._

It feels nice though and if there were any physicality, she’d burrow into it. As she cries, she finds herself wishing he were alive, that she could have met him. 

She lets herself want, however briefly, the impossible. 

* * *

Days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months and the weather clears, giving way to the bright and beautiful Hanamura Angela had first expected. Genji visits her everyday now, bringing warmth with him every time just as he had that day in her office. 

Despite her better judgement, Angela finds herself wishing more often that Genji were alive. Although she doesn’t quite know how they would have ever crossed paths. 

She’d looked into his records by now, at least the very little information there had been. Someone had taken great care to scrub most of the information. 

_Genji Shimada_. Second son and heir to the Shimada clan, now that his father, Sojiro Shimada, had passed and his brother had assumed leadership. Part of her couldn’t quite reconcile Genji as she knew him with the knowledge that he belonged to a clan that had built a criminal empire over generations. But perhaps, that’s where the mask came into play. Perhaps that had been his alias. 

Still, knowing what she knew, she couldn’t bring herself to judge him for the life he’d led. She was no more scared of him now than she’d been when he’d first appeared to her in that courtyard outside the lounge. 

Instead, whenever he appears now, she finds herself smiling, glad for his presence. He keeps her company long into the solitary night, regaling her with stories of his life, his trips around Japan, South Korea, America, France. 

In turn, she tells him about Switzerland, about Gothenburg and the Lindholms taking her in, all the countries she’d worked in. Egypt. Venezuela. Cuba. London. France.

“Maybe we were there at the same time,” Genji teases when she mentions France. Angela tries not to flush. 

They fall into an easy rhythm, the calm before the proverbial storm. 

It comes on a day that starts out like any other. She’s on route to the 2nd ward, one of her last actually, a fact which brings her no small amount of joy, on her way back from lunch. 

She’s passing by the emergency unit when the paramedics come in through the double doors, stirring up a frenzy. 

There’s a man on the stretcher, deathly pale and bleeding profusely from his chest. Black hairs stick to his cheeks and neck, his skin and beard shiny with cold sweat, most likely due to advanced hypovolemic shock. Tattoos peek out from underneath his ripped shirt, spanning from his chest to the wrist of his right arm. Dragons, she realizes.

Angela can’t make out much from the rapid fire Japanese between the paramedics but she does make out the name of a clan. _Shimada._

Angela watches as they round the corner into the ICU and out of sight, a sense of foreboding settling in her stomach. A member of the clan, here in the hospital, would only bring trouble. She was sure of that. 

Continuing on her way, she pulls out her datapad, flicking through the local news. It’s the flickering lights first that alert her to his presence, then the telltale prickle of sensation at the back of her neck. 

When she glances up, he’s standing before her, close enough for her to hear the harsh rasp of breath behind the oni mask. She takes an involuntary step back. He hadn’t appeared to her in this form in a long time. 

“Why…” he asks, voice so distinctly _anguished_ even through the mask, it makes her pause. “Why is _he_ here?”

Angela looks at him sharply. “Genji…”

Outside, the wind howls, darkening when just a few moments ago it had been light. Rain pounds against the windows, heavy and unrelenting, joining in the cacophony until its a dull roar in her ears. Overhead, the lights flicker. Her eyes shifted from Genji to the windows and back. Was he doing this?

"Genji," she repeats, wanting so badly to reach out, to see his face unmasked. “Who is he?”

When she steps forward, he flickers for a moment, the mask falling away, brown eyes locking with hers. But then red replaces brown as the familiar mask takes its place once again and then he’s gone, leaving only the raging storm outside in his stead. 

Angela turns on her heels, breaking into a run as she makes her way to the ICU, knowing that’s where Genji would go. The double doors of the emergency entrance are open, bringing in gusts of wind, rain and a swirl of wet leaves that sweep across the floor past Angela. Outside, lighting flashes across the sky, followed by the familiar rumbling sound of thunder. 

When she bursts into the ICU, almost knocking over a nurse in her haste, there is no sign of Genji or the doctors treating the clan member. Quickly grabbing a pair of disposable scrubs and cap, she hurries down the hallway to the operation rooms, peering in quickly through the windows of each door as she passes. 

She finds the door at the very end of the hallway. 

When she peeks through the window, she catches sight of Genji just off to the side, watching quietly, fists curled at his side, as the doctors work to stop the blood loss. As she watches, something extraordinary occurs, to which she is the sole witness. 

The oni mask melts away, the black of his clothes fading back to white. As she watches, Genji’s eyes begin to glow green, reflecting the glowing lights that surround him. His clothes smoulder and burn, giving way to tattooed skin, a dragon that seems to complement the dragon she’d seen on the other man’s body. 

Like his eyes, the tattoo begins to glow, the skin surrounding it warping and giving way to shimmering green scales that cover his hands, his arms, his chest. His hair grows long, a line of it appearing down his back, thick and shiny as it whips around in the air. Where there once had been human hands, claws grow and when she glances at his face, she finds reptilian features not unlike the ones of myth. 

Right before her eyes, Genji has become a dragon. 

But he isn’t the only one. 

Because in the air, above the bed where the doctors are still doing their best to save the life of the man that lies there, a blue dragon has appeared, equally as majestic as the first. Blue and green slither around each other, glowing eyes illuminating the room in a way that leaves Angela breathless as she watches.

The doctors in the room don’t even blink. They have no idea what’s happening just above their heads. 

There’s a dance in how the way the dragons move around each other, aggressive as they nip at each other’s flanks and bare their teeth. There’s familiarity in the movement too, how they mirror each other, but she can also sense tension, an unspoken bad blood. 

Somewhere in the back of her head, she recognizes the significance of this, sees it for the clue it is. Unconsciously, the connection is made. 

Angela is so mesmerized, she isn’t expecting the illusion to shatter so suddenly as the body on the bed begins to convulse. The blue dragon dissipates and almost as if recognizing it is now alone, the green dragon roars. The sound is unlike anything she’s ever heard, rattling her to her very core. It’s a sound that sears itself into her brain, that calls to the part of her that had felt alone in the world from the moment that officer had appeared on her doorstep with the awful news. It’s a painful sound, full of betrayal and despair. 

It too disappears and though, she isn’t sure whether the change is permanent, who or what remains now, man or dragon, she knows somehow that Genji’s presence has fully left the room. That he’s no longer watching from beyond the veil or simply invisible to the human eye - invisible to her, at least. 

She doesn’t stick around to watch the rest of the operation, knowing there wasn’t anything she could do from outside the operating room. Part of her wants to track Genji down but she doesn’t quite know how to do that. He had always come to her, she’d never needed to seek him out. 

Trusting that he’ll find her when he wants to talk, she shoves aside her worry and sets out to the 2nd ward as was her original intention. If she drags her feet as she makes her way through the halls, hoping Genji will appear, no one else has to know about it. 

She checks up on Mrs. Watanabe first, trying her best to be present, to give the kind lady her full attention and answer the questions she’s asked. Mrs. Watanabe isn’t so easily fooled but she doesn’t pry either. 

The rest of the day goes similarly, Angela a bit too distracted as she goes about her duties, not enough to make a difference in her work but still lacking her usual level of attentiveness. 

She makes a point of stopping by the ICU throughout the day to inquire about the patient they’d brought in, who she soon finds out is Hanzo Shimada, Genji’s older brother. 

She isn’t wholly surprised, she’d realized it on some level standing outside the operating room, but having it confirmed does put things in perspective. The intensity of Genji’s emotions, the familiarity there. She wonders about the bad blood between them, whether she’d imagined that. 

Genji doesn’t appear until the very end of the day, when she’s in her office packing up for the day. The weather has finally calmed though it remains relatively gloomy, the evening filled with rain and fog. 

It reminds her of her first month at the hospital. Now that she knows that Genji was somehow influencing the weather (and she remembers now in her research coming across some theories about how specific types of yokai were believed powerful enough to influence the weather, to cause natural disasters), it makes her wonder for how long Hanamura had been under his influence…

This time, she doesn’t even sense his arrival. 

She only realizes he’s there because of his reflection on the dark screen of her computer once she’s turned it off. Except it’s not really Genji she sees reflected on the screen but rather the dragon. 

When she whirls, wide-eyed, she finds herself face to face with it - him. 

Glowing green eyes bore into hers, steady and unblinking. Up close, she can see the smoothness of the scales, how they shine in the dim light of the office. She swallows, blinking as it begins to orbit around her. 

When he speaks, his voice seems to come from all angles at once, reverberating through the air. 

“Are you scared of me?” he asks. 

It sounds like Genji but there’s something older in his voice now, almost ancient. There’s a solemnity that speaks of wisdom, of dignity and honor.

“No,” she answers and it isn’t a lie. She isn’t scared of him. But she is perhaps scared of the thought that Genji, as she’d known him, was gone now, never to return. She hadn’t even said goodbye. 

When she asks, her voice betrays her, a quaver finding its way into her her words. “Is... is he gone?”

The dragon stops, tail curling softly around her wrist. Soft black hair tickles her palm. He answers her question with a question of his own. 

“Do you care for him?” he asks, green eyes full of inquiry. 

“Yes.”

The dragon seems to hum in contentment, a soft sound that sounds almost like a purr. It inspires such a warm reaction in Angela, she can’t help but reach out with her other hand. The dragon pauses in its purring, watching her cautiously as her hand nears the side of its snout. 

She almost expects her hand to go through thin air but she’s pleasantly surprised when it makes contact with the scales, smooth and cool to the touch. After a brief moment of hesitation, the dragon seems to lean in to the touch, resuming its purring. 

Angela laughs, giddiness bubbling up within her. 

She doesn't see the transformation, eyes closed as she laughs and lets herself revel in the moment, barely feels the change under her own hand. But when a hand comes up to cradle hers, she freezes. 

When she opens her eyes, it’s Genji sitting before her, perched on the edge of her desk, his cheek underneath her hand. His skin is soft and warm and it feels _real_ even though she can still see how translucent he gets towards the lower end of his body. 

“Genji,” she breathed. “You’re back.”

“Angela,” he greets, voice warm and low. 

She smiles. “I thought you were gone. That you’d resolved your unfinished business.”

He frowns. “My brother is indeed my unfinished business but I don’t think it's one that will ever be resolved. Perhaps I am meant to remain a _jibakurei ...”_

Angela drops her hand, now mirroring Genji with her own frown.

“A what? What do you mean you don’t think it’ll ever be resolved?”

Genji glances up at her, face somber. “The jibakurei are spirits that cannot find peace. My brother… it is complicated.”

“Then explain to me. Does it have to do with the clan?” 

Genji sighs, eyes unable to meet Angela. He doesn’t seem surprised that she’s put it together.

“When my father Sojiro, died, Hanzo was meant to assume leadership of the clan but… The clan, they wanted him to straighten me out first. Back then, I was a rebel without a cause,” he jokes, more for her benefit than his. 

She can’t help the chuckle that escapes her. She would have loved to see that side of him.

When he continues, the humor is gone. “I never wanted to help lead the clan and they would not accept that. They forced Hanzo to keep the order, to kill me… I have not forgiven my brother for his role in my death… I doubt if I ever will.”

Angela doesn’t know how to respond at first, trying to quell her rising horror. How did one react to such a thing? 

She shifts forward, not quite knowing what she’s going to say or do when she catches sight of the photo pinned beside her desk. 

“But you still care for him…” she whispers, more to herself than him. 

Genji nods. “He is my brother. Perhaps I am a fool for thinking there is still hope for him…”

Angela shakes her head. 

“He’s stable at the moment. They were able to stop the bleeding. Perhaps you could speak to him tomorrow,” Angela suggests. She hoped that the display with the dragons meant Hanzo would be able to see him. 

Genji remains silent.

“Genji,” she calls, reaching out to touch her fingers lightly to his hand, her heart somersaulting at the fact that she could actually touch him now. When he looks up at her, from underneath dark lashes, she can’t help but notice how handsome he is. “Whatever happens with your brother, I will help you cross over. Whatever it takes.”

“Thank you, Angela,” he replies, full of sincerity, his fingers slotting against hers. 

The warmth that bubbles in her chest stays with her even as she steps out into the chilly, damp evening minutes later. 

She stops to open her umbrella, its surface still sprinkled with pink blossoms, when she feels it. The telltale prickle at the back of her neck. 

Instinctively, she turns, eyes scanning the very top of the building, where sure enough she can make out his form. 

Against the darkness of the night, his figure is a guardian spirit in wait, seeking to protect. 

**Author's Note:**

> After a lot of research, I took some liberties playing around with the different types of yokai and their associated attributes but that aside, I sincerely hope I was respectful in my writing of Japanese culture. If anyone has any advice or suggestions for future reference, please let me know. 
> 
> I had a great time writing this and even though it isn't very long, because I had school stuff to deal with, I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Happy Holidays to all! :)


End file.
